Elon Musk-Led Tesla Loses Another Key Designer As David Imai Heads To Arc Boats

Tesla Inc.’s TSLA Director of Design David Imai has left the EV company to join electric boat maker Arc Boats.

What Happened: Imai said in a post on Linkedin earlier this month that he will be joining Arc Boats later in February as Chief Designer. As of today, Imai has already changed his job description.

According to Imai’s LinkedIn profile, he joined Tesla in 2011 after having worked for over 4 years with General Motors. He joined as a car designer at Tesla and was primarily responsible for the exterior design of production cars. He became director of design in August 2019 and held on to the position until he left the company.

Imai’s is not the sole departure from Tesla’s design team in recent months. Bernard Lee left his position as Senior Manager of Vehicle Design in November.

Lee was part of Tesla from October 2008 and left the company in 2018 but joined back in June 2020, according to his LinkedIn profile. Last year, he was the senior exterior design manager for the refreshed Model 3 as well as the Cybercab demo and production vehicle.

Why It Matters: The departures come as the company is gearing up for new products.

Tesla in January also said that preparations are underway across its existing factories for the launch of new products including more affordable models. The start of production of new models is slated for the first half of 2025.

The company has also begun hiring for the production of Cybercab which is slated to start in 2026.

In an interview published earlier this week, Tesla executive Lars Moravy also said that the company is looking to refresh the design of its Model S and X cars later this year as well.

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